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Two-Face Tuesday: The Charlatan, Part 2

The second and final part of "Dead Reckoning," a seemingly-forgotten six-part DETECTIVE COMICS story by Ed Brubaker featuring one of the most intriguing (and since unused) new villains to appear in BATMAN comics over the past decade.

At the end of the last part, the Charlatan--aka Paul Sloane--warned Batman that "the next death would be on your head." And who *is* the next target?"

See what I mean about Brubaker's inability to write the Rogues? Jervis only has one line, but come on, "What the hell?" That's not Jervis. It's too common. He'd say something like, "What bandersnatchery is this...?... Oh dear..." Tell me you can't hear Roddy McDowell say those lines. Now imagine him saying, "What the hell...? ... no..." It just doesn't work, does it?

Rule of thumb for Batman character dialogue: if you can't imagine the voice actors from B:TAS saying those lines, then they're being written incorrectly.

Jervis survives, but ends up in a coma on life support. Batman decides to interrogate someone who might just know what's going on... before Sloane gets to him next:

Batman shows up in the garden of Jim Gordon, where the two had talked during that wonderful scene in NO MAN'S LAND.

The favor is that he wants to talk with the Joker, who at this point is incarcerated in the Slab (the metahuman super-prison in Antarctica where the Joker ended up in JOKER: LAST LAUGH).

To Brubaker's credit, his Joker actually sounds somewhat like the Joker. Furthermore, it's a marked improvement over the cliched, unfunny Joker of Brubaker's BATMAN: THE MAN WHO LAUGHS. I know many people love that story, but I honestly found it contrived, and his Joker to be painfully trite.

Joker asks Batman to think back eight years, "Any Two-Face job seem a little... off to you?"

Batman remembers a Two-Face gold heist at Binary Airlines, a job that--Joker notes--Sloane-Face was never supposed to pull. "But he just couldn't help himself. He had to know the thrill of the crime... know how Dent really felt inside." Which, as you can imagine, is just a great iea.

Batman shows up, and Sloane-Face tries to escape, but gets shot at by a security guard. Sloane-Face shoots the guard, but what really tooks Batman's notice was that "He hesitated..."

Now that's the Joker: playing all angles for his own amusement, and utterly destroying a man just for the sheer fun of it. I've said it a thousand times: any great writer knows that there are far, far worse things you can do than just kill a man.

And frankly, this monster-conversion you're about to see? I find it far more compelling and believable than the sudden flip of Harvey Dent in THE DARK KNIGHT. I always hated the line, "Madness is like gravity. All it takes is a little push." No, it bloody well does not. No one thing drives a sane person crazy... at least, not as crazy and Two-Face and Sloane get driven.

Take a look at what Sloane goes through. He was already unhinged (as most method actors are a bit) before the Rogues approached him. Then think about what he goes through next. You've already seen him inhabiting the soul of Harvey Dent, which is risk enough, since many actors can't quite shake the demons they channel in certain dark roles. On top of that, he shot and presumably killed a man, clearly something he wasn't quite prepared to do. That's a hell of a thing to go through.

But that's not even half of Sloane's ordeal:

"YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE ME?!" "It... it sucks..."

But even that isn't what pushes Sloane over the edge. You see, being the resident medical expert of the gang, Scarecrow pronounced Sloane dead, and graciously offered to dispose of the body. Which is to say, Sloane was still alive, which really, really sucks for him. I'll let the only "unscathed" Bat-Rogue finish telling the nasty origin of the Charlatan:

(I can't shake the feeling that the art really, really wants to be Bernie Wrightson's FRANKENSTEIN)

And there we have another similarity to Darkman: Peyton Westlake's injuries resulted in him being unable to feel any pain, whereas Sloane is unable to feel any fear. That said, while he rips off Darkman in a lot of respects, these attributes seem more logical for a crazy method actor than... well, what the hell kind of scientist was Peyton Westlake anyway?? Even if he could make the faces, there's no doubt that someone like Paul Sloane would be better at impersonations.

So anyway, Crane decides to keep Sloane as a plaything in his hideout until Sloane escape. He left a note, promising Crane that they'd meet again when it's time for the whole ordeal to come "full circle," and thanking him for "giving his life new meaning."

Time to backtrack for a sec, to fill in details on stuff I couldn't include:

At the end of their meeting, the Joker revealed that he learned all about Sloane's ordeal with Harvey because Sloane already told the Joker himself. Joker was being uncharacteristically cooperative because Sloane wanted him to keep Batman busy while he kidnapped Two-Face from Arkham. Kidnapped... or maybe helped to escape?

Sloane's lines above put me in mind of something I've wondered about Two-Face. If Harvey ever did stop using the coin, what would take mean for his evil side? After all, the coin is something of a coping mechanism for Harvey's warring sides. Before Two-Face was unleashed, the "good" side was mostly in control, with the "evil" bubbling underneath.

So without the coin keeping them in check, what's to keep the bad side from doing the same thing, utterly taking over and obliterating Harvey's conscience, insecurity, doubt, and humanity? He'd be a complete and utter monster, and far more of a threat than he even if now.

But now, thanks to the Rogues's actions (direct and indirect), on top of his own instability, Paul Sloane has a freedom of evil that Harvey cannot or will not experience (and that half-humanity is also what leads to his own suffering, thus why it sucks to be Harvey Dent). In this respect, I have to wonder if Sloane's a greater monster than even Two-Face.

Unfortunately, I can't show the final epic battle because I'm pretty much reached my page limit. Suffice it to say, an epic fiery battle ensues with Harvey and Sloane trying to kill Batman. Eventually, it gets to the point where Batman has to save Sloane's life, which gives Harvey the chance to shoot Batman, when he flips the coin. It comes up clean. Harvey sighs and leaves, "Another day, I guess..."

Sloane falls from a great height, and Batman gives a classic "NOOOO!" Sloane survives his fall, and tells Batman, "You're... you're so afraid... just like... like everyone else... pathetic..."

Two days later at Wayne Manor, Bruce takes the time to angst upon the possibility that Gotham does nothing but breed monsters. Alfred counter than it's bred its fair share of good as well, and calms Bruce with a sensible cup of tea.

The story ends at Arkham Asylum, where a recovering Sloane recieves a visitor.

... Where the heck did he get that mask? He never had a mask anywhere in the story. For that matter, why are they calling him "Charlatan?" When did he ever refer to himself as "the Charlatan"?

What, when he showed up, did Jeremiah Arkham say, "What, he doesn't have a costume? But it's important for my inmates to wear their costumes! What else will they take off when they're sane? Orderly, dig through the bargain bin and get this man a mask! Something with a drama theme! And think up a spiffy villain name, stat!"

Kind of makes you wonder what the Charlatan would have looked like in full costume. Would he have kept the hooded Darkman costume, but wear the drama mask instead of the bandages?

It kind of boggles my mind that no one's done anything with the Charlatan since this story, back in July 2003. He hasn't even gotten so much as a cameo in an Arkham cell! Such a shame. Just think of the potential for an insane method actor and master of disguise with the inability to feel fear!

Plus, just imagine: he could have an in-Arkham romance with Jane Doe... assuming the two could find one another. And maybe since he's a lover of Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff, perhaps Sloane's an admirer of Basil Karlo! I could totally see the Charlatan and Clayface putting on a grand theatrical production of crime and horror. But then, maybe that's just the ham actor in me.

Why the hell do they let them do that? With that crowd, getting shanked by shivs carved out of the popsicle sticks would be the LEAST of your worries. I don't even want to think about what the Joker could do with macaroni and glitter. o_0

"Hush" bored the crap out of me, but this guy? This guy I could have enjoyed reading more of. It even gives a MUCH better reason for the fact that Hush was a poorly executed excuse to let Jim Lee go on a way OTT trip around the Bat-villains (Seriously, his Joker is dreadful), since the Batvillains created him.

Batman being surprised that the plot was "trying to kill Batman" seems a little odd, and would hardly be THAT big a shock, since he sets himself up as a walking target...

He IS very similar to Darkman in some respects, but only some respects. Peyton Westlake was not technically crazy - he was a sane man, tortured by grief and rage, yes, but sane. His crazier moments were simply a result of the unchecked adrenaline surges that flowed through his system. Paul Sloane, on the other hand, brought his fate upon himself - he was a method actor who got too deep into the method, and it destroyed him. One is an innocent bystander who ran afoul of some crooks, the other is a guy who knew - or THOUGHT he knew - what he was doing. The two have very different vibes. (Also, Peyton would have NEVER done something like that to HIS girlfriend.)

There are enough differences for anyone paying attention, but also enough superficial similarities to draw disparaging comparisons (just as some others have done in comparing him with Basil Karlo Clayface). But the bandages, the black cloak, the face-wearing master of disguise thing, it's all very Darkman in style, not character.

Well, the bandages are a dead giveaway, yes. That particular pattern of bandages with the space between the eyes covered by a single bandage in a sharp diagonal position is practically Darkman's trademark - they were always in that pattern in the movie; I think they're in that pattern on the action figure, for that matter. And yes, the overall style is indeed very much like a Darkman gone bad, I agree - but I didn't really see the similarities, bandage pattern notwithstanding, until you pointed them out, so I don't think they're all THAT glaring. All that being said, I'm now picturing a Batman/Darkman team-up. Is cool, yes?

I really do like this and I wouldn't mind see more of the guy, lose the mask and that name though, Sloan is good enough. With that trench coat, his face and a gun or two he's menacing enough to be unleashed on Gotham. He kind of reminds me of the Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 even.

He's definitely more interesting than I might have guessed. Yes, Brubaker isn't doing the best job of writing the voices of some of the villains, here...but I like the story he's telling. The Charlatan has some decent potential in him and it would be nice to see him used again. Especially as a foil to the core Batman villains.

How? What evidence was there? You mean the one scene where he holds Joker's henchman at gunpoint and flips the coin? The rigged game where he was merely trying to pull a Batman and scare the guy into confession, with no actual intention to shoot him?

Even then, dude, even if he did, you don't go from zero to crazy that quickly. Doesn't fucking work. Even if he was close to the edge, he was still too good, too noble, too with it to be capable of killing children. He would eventually, but not that quickly.

From the start, it's all about control. He lies to his CO-WORKER AND FIANCE about letting her take lead in the case if the coin toss comes up tails . . . which it can't. He tries to keep the trial going after a gun's pulled on him in open court (and he disarms the witness, both acts should have forced a mistrial). Everything about him whispers control freak.

Those are good points, but it does NOT address that quick a descent to evil. There are plenty of sane control freaks, and control freaks with anger issues, and both. But the kind of madness that he'd have to have to get to that point simply wasn't there, as depicted in the film. Not to try and kill a child. Yes, killing mobsters. Yes, even going after the cops. But a child? How the hell can you justify a leap that drastic without having him build up to that as an act of pure desperation with absolutely nothing left to strike at? Because that's what he's doing: he's destroying, not trying to keep control anymore.

As a side note on the article: I get his problems with Harvey's character having a split-personality, and that's definitely annoying when it's done poorly, but when handled well with meaning it's part of what makes his character work: the fact that he represents the warring sides of id and superego

Enh. He's already killed. In his worldview, he may not consider a child over the line. I can see Dent being one of the type to think there's only one line, and he's already crossed it, there's no stopping now.

Two-face would have to be completely scarred and all traces of Harvey would have to be gone for him to stop using the coin, I think. I also think it's likely (albeit remotely) in that scenario that a new persona (ala the Judge in BTAS) would be born because Harvey's split persona exists as two-face and in some cases refers to itself as such.

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